”In May, Donald Trump Jr. celebrated his wedding on two private islands.” It is with this sentence that the investigation by the investigative site ProPublica, published Monday September 14, begins. In a group photo taken in the Bahamas during this happy event, we discover, hidden in the last row behind the bride and groom, the top of a man’s head. It is that of Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.
“According to documents viewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people close to the event, Kremlev covered hundreds of thousands of dollars in wedding expenses,” the site explains. “The oligarch notably paid for the rental of a private island for the reception and accommodation of the guests. He also financed other important expenses, such as the fireworks, and his team participated in the organization.”
International Boxing Association President Umar Kremlev attends a conference in Paris, France, November 16, 2023. AP – Michel Euler
A close friend of Putin
Aged 43, Umar Kremlev heads the International Boxing Association (IBA), with which the International Olympic Committee broke after multiple warnings regarding its financial governance and ethical questions. According to a press release from the IBA, Vladimir Putin awarded him, in April 2026, the Order of Friendship, an official Russian distinction. The text was accompanied by a photograph showing the two men shaking hands. Shortly before Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding, Kremlev was part of the Russian delegation that accompanied Vladimir Putin to Beijing.
Upon the announcement of these embarrassing revelations, Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Trump responded in a co-signed message, published on the latter’s Instagram account, that their “dear friend” Umar Kremlev had “very generously offered two incredible evenings” of festivities in the Bahamas in May. “This was an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend, and we are deeply grateful,” explains this publication signed by “Don and Bettina”.
The American channel NBC News, however, wonders “why a member of the Trump family – who amassed hundreds of millions of dollars during the first year of his father’s second term, part of it through investments in cryptocurrencies involving foreign investments – would accept a gift from someone so close to Putin?” According to Forbes magazine, Donald Trump Jr.’s fortune is estimated at $300 million.
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Around 50 guests were present at this wedding. Among them were Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, emissary and son-in-law of the American president, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump and her husband Michael Boulos, which made the presence of Kremlev and his associates all the stranger in the eyes of the other guests, adds ProPublica.
“Not a big problem” for the American president
If President Donald Trump attended neither the wedding ceremony itself nor the festivities, claiming that he had to stay in Washington due to discussions related to the war in Iran, these revelations show the previously unknown relationship between this man and the son of the tenant of the White House. “A member of Putin’s entourage financially supports the president’s son and benefits from privileged access to the Trump family,” insists ProPublica.
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Asked about this presence, the American president explained in a statement to NBC News that it was “not a big problem”. “I have no idea who Umar is, I’ve never heard of him, and he didn’t pay for Don and Bettina’s wedding, which took place in a totally different location and on a different date. It was a reception given in their honor after the ceremony. Nothing out of the ordinary! I wasn’t present at that party,” he clarified.
Member of the “Night Wolves”
In a portrait, the British newspaper The Guardian looks back on the career of this oligarch “who has spent the last decade frequenting some of the most influential circles of Russian political power”. An amateur boxer, originally from Serpukhov, an industrial town south of Moscow, he built up “a criminal record – convicted of extortion in 2004 and assault in 2007 – before reappearing in the mid-2010s as a boxing promoter”.
In the 2010s, he became a member of the “Night Wolves,” a pro-Kremlin motorcycle club whose members traveled in numbers to Crimea after its annexation by Russia in 2014. Some also fought alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. It was at this club that he met Alexei Rubezhny, a powerful Russian general in the Federal Protective Service responsible for the security of senior officials.
At the same time, he climbed the ranks and in 2017 he was appointed secretary general of the Russian boxing federation, then three years later president of the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA), which will become the IBA at the end of 2021. A key position for the Kremlin. “Umar is being manipulated by Putin. He was using sport for diplomatic purposes,” a former member of the IBA board of directors told ProPublica, referring to Kremlev’s leadership of the organization. “It’s geopolitics. The fact that it’s boxing is just a coincidence.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Secretary General of the Russian Boxing Federation, member of the Executive Committee of the International Boxing Association (AIBA) Umar Kremlev attend the inauguration of the new international sambo and boxing center at the Luzhniki sports complex in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, September 10, 2022. AP – Gavriil Grigorov
His mandate has also proven to be very controversial. “In 2023, the International Olympic Committee withdrew its recognition of the IBA after years of concerns about its governance, finances and arbitration, an unprecedented decision against an international sports federation, describes The Guardian,
In addition to his sporting activities, the British newspaper also underlines that he would be “at the helm of three of the largest betting companies in the country and would have been one of the main beneficiaries of a reform of the gambling market carried out by the State”.
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“This should be unthinkable for the president’s son”
International Boxing Association President Umar Kremlev attends a conference in Paris, France, November 16, 2023. AP – Michel Euler
Justin Elliot, a ProPublica journalist investigating the matter, explained that he ultimately found very little information about the relationship between Donald Trump Jr. and Umar Kremlev, but that it raises questions: “So we spoke with many former FBI counterintelligence officials, Republicans and Democrats, who said that if they had heard about this kind of thing when they were in government, it would have been an extremely alarming situation. To the point that they would have warned the member of the family of the president, in this case Donald Trump Jr., that this person could have other motivations than simple friendly generosity.
“This is not an ordinary businessman. He is someone who has very close ties with the Russian government,” insists Justin Elliot. “If I finance your wedding, at some point you will owe me,” former FBI official Frank Montoya Jr. told ProPublica, adding, “That should be unthinkable for the president’s son.”
As Time Magazine points out, This is not the first time that Donald Trump Jr. has sparked controversy due to his interactions with Russia. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he met Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who said she “had information on people linked to Russia who financed the Democratic National Committee and who supported Mrs. Clinton”, Democratic candidate and rival of his father. This meeting later factored into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into President Trump’s campaign and its ties to Russia, although Donald Trump Jr. was never accused of wrongdoing during that investigation.
